­­AN AMERICAN WARTIME DREAM: THE PACKAGED HOUSE SYSTEM OF KONRAD WACHSMANN AND

ALICIA IMPERIALE Temple University

INTRODUCTION Wachsmann did not have a preconception of the perfect or final house—it remained an open system of 10 types of 40” x 120” The “Packaged House” is an extraordinary example of a prefabricated panels on a 40” module. This paper explores the relationship modular construction system designed by Konrad Wachsmann between System Theory that was developed during World War II and Walter Gropius, German emigres who came to the United and the “Packaged House” as an architectural Building System. States during World War II. Its lyricism inspired László Moholy- Nagy to include a photograph of the prefabricated parts packaged Wachsmann spent years developing the project and slowed down for delivery in his groundbreaking book Art and Vision of 1946. the design development and fabrication phases of the project as The “Packaged House” project is best known for its conceptual he sought to perfect the system: mundane concerns for fabrication richness, but was never fully executed nor a commercial success. repeatedly threatened to undermine the universality of the SYSTEM which was of utmost concern for him. The title of the book, The Dream of the Factory-Made House: Konrad Wachsmann and Walter Gropius, is telling in that the “Packaged House” remained a dream in that it never did in fact go into production. This is a shame, as the system was an incredible achievement that deserves attention today.

SYSTEM THEORY AND BUILDING SYSTEMS

The confluence of system theory and the production of architectural building systems in the U.S. are related through the adaptation of pre-World War II techniques and knowledge that were transformed during the war and in the immediate postwar period. After dis- cussing the theoretical implications of system theory, this paper explores The “Packaged House” by Konrad Wachsmann and Walter Gropius, a building system developed during the war. This building system illustrates the unique manner in which systems theory as a concept that linked vastly different fields would be explored in the field of architecture.

Prefabricated, quickly deployable building systems were necessary during the war to house troops and strategic equipment. Prefabri- cated building systems were also needed to house large numbers of migrant workers adjacent to the factories producing aircraft, equip- ment, and weapons. Even during the war, there was the notion of 194X, or the unknown, but eventual end year of the war, in which the stepped-up wartime factory could be retooled to produce low- cost prefabricated housing for returning veterans and their families.

Advancements made in technology and industrial fabrication during Figure 1. The Packaged House System in László Moholy-Nagy, Art and the war share a symbiotic relationship with a systems approach Vision, 1946. in architecture. Architectural building systems provide a concrete manifestation of the conceptual framework of system theory.

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System theory was developed in tandem in the biological and manner of an open, evolving system, whether natural, physical, or physical sciences, challenging the previous held conceptions about social. A key feature of Bertalanffy’s theory was that it would be organization. According to the laws of thermodynamics, a physical applicable (as Wiener had thought of cybernetics) to any kind of experiment is a “closed” system, in which a finite set of elements subject—exhibiting the quality of isomorphism. Bertalanffy’s text are in interaction and will tend towards a condition of “entropy” or “The Theory of Open Systems in Physics and Biology,” seeks to loss of information as the system advances towards equilibrium. clarify the distinction between physical models and the organism: In contrast, argued through a “system” approach, organic and non-organic phenomena are considered as “open” systems– with The only goal of science appeared to be analytical, i.e., the splitting up interactions back to and from the environment.1 of reality into ever smaller units and the isolation of individual causal trains. Thus, physical reality was split up into mass points or atoms, the living organism into cells, behavior into reflexes, perception into A system may be any kind of entity, physical or theoretical, that is punctual sensations, etc…. composed of interrelated parts. There are common characteristics that systems share. There is a structure to how the component parts We may state as characteristic of modern science that this scheme are arranged and a function or functions that each part performs of isolable units acting in one-way causality has proved to be within the larger environment of the system. Input is taken in from insufficient. Hence the appearance, in all fields of science, of notions the environment and follows a process or set of procedures to like wholeness, holistic, organismic, gestalt, etc., which all signify that, in the last resort, we must think in terms of systems of elements produce an output. The output then acts to feedback information in mutual interaction.”4 into the system from outside the system and acts to influence 2 changes in the system. Bertalanffy’s phrase, “systems of elements in mutual interaction,” in keeping with both Wiener’s and Bertalanffy’s belief in system The publication in 1948 of Norbert Wiener’s Cybernetics: or Control theory being applicable to diverse fields as an isomorphic leap and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, following is demonstrated in the design of The “Packaged House.” While his 1943 Behavior, Purpose and Teleology with Julian Bigelow this direct correlation cannot be documented we may view the and Arturo Rosenblueth, was grounded in his involvement in and “Packaged House” through this lens. exposure to the development of mechanical control systems such as servomechanisms earlier in his career, and artillery targeting THE PACKAGED HOUSE: BACKGROUND systems during World War II. A major challenge for the Allies was the incapacity of antiaircraft guns to make their target on Nazi aircraft Originally apprenticed as a cabinetmaker, Konrad Wachsmann studied during bombing raids. The aircraft had gained maneuverability at the Arts-and-Crafts schools of and and at the Berlin and speed since World War I, and a new approach was desperately Academy of Arts (under the Expressionist architect ). He needed to predict how far ahead of the aircraft to aim the weapon. worked for the timber building company Christof and Unmäck, where The weapons were fitted with “gun directors,” a kind of analog he was designer for wood prefabricated houses. In 1929 he persuaded computer which would calculate the plane’s future position, and to use the Christof and Unmäck system for the house “servomechanisms,” which would control the guns based on the offered to Einstein by the city of Berlin. Wachsmann was held in an 3 “gun director’s” output signals. internment camp in France and on May 16, 1941, his fortieth birthday in Marseille, he received a visa to go to the U.S. He arrived in New York Trajectory tables were created which calculated the variables of the City by boat and Gropius wired money for him to get to Boston, where gun caliber, size of the shell, and type of fuse. These tables were they collaborated for several months on various projects including a calculated by hand by mathematicians, who were known as “com- recreation center in Key West, when that work was abruptly stopped puters.” Wiener’s wartime work in ballistics would lead him to de- by the attacks on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.5 Wachsmann velop the theory of cybernetics and he would by 1948 discuss its relates those days and the impact the attack would have on The “Pack- application in diverse fields: from the prediction of flight paths, to aged House” system in his autobiography TIMEBRIDGE: computing machines, electrical networks, and neuromuscular behav- ior, among others. Whether mechanical or biological, the cybernetic The next day Roosevelt declared war on Japan and within a few days system depends on feedback, which requires the communication of and Italy declared war on the United States. information within the system. The theme of self-organization and feedback mechanisms in the control of an organism or machine are “This ends everything,” Gropius said. clear similarities in cybernetics and system theory and demonstrate “No,” I answered, “this will be the beginning. Now people will come striking contrast to the received notions of science up until that point. to their senses. They will be forced to be rational.”6

Concurrent to Wiener’s work in cybernetics, biologist Ludwig von Wachsmann continues, Bertalanffy had organized a group of thinkers around his notion of a General System Theory. This theory sought to develop a unified “Walter Gropius was quite desperate, but I cannot explain why I science of principles that could be applied in analysis of any sensed that now the great opportunity had arrived. That evening on

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December 7, returning home, I told Gropius for the first time that One could easily say that the “Packaged House” system was in fact I had developed during time in the internment camp in France a a closed system, in that there are a finite number of elements that universal system of industrialized building components, of course in the metric system. I had 13 small ink drawings with me of that project can be manipulated within the system. It is true that the Packaged as well as 12 sketches of the tubular steel structure system which House would certainly be considered a closed system from this point I began to develop in Grenoble and continued “aux Cambreniers”. of view. In prefabricated building systems, closed systems are made When I had arrived in New York, my friends suggested to throw these of proprietary building materials designed for that system only. Often, drawings into the Hudson River, since they were sure that nobody was waiting for my ideas and designs. Those drawings were the only as was with the case of the “Packaged House,” even the metrical precious things I had brought over from the Old World, and I certainly organization is not aligned with building industry standards. The was not going to throw them away. Packaged House panels, for example are 3’–4” wide x 10’ high (vertical heights could be determined in 3’–4” increments, 3 of We talked after dinner until late in the night about it, and he became which make the 10’ module), while logical within the system, does so interested that he said he would like to help, in fact to participate. And we decided to start to work at it immediately and together.” not correspond to the industry standard of 4’x8’ plywood panels and other modular elements. Thus windows, doors, and all other So in this way, Wachsmann and Gropius, both German emigrés to the architectural fittings would be modular only to the system. An open United States, began to collaborate on a project for industrialized system is one in which the metrical dimensions would coordinate modular housing, The “Packaged House.” Wachsmann’s “universal with a vast array of industrially produced materials and equipment. Joint” would give great structural stability to the joining of prefabricated panels. Again, the jointing system was based on 2-, 3-, and 4-way connections between panels. All of the building surfaces were to be created from the same panels: exterior walls, interior partitions, floors, ceilings and the roof.

In February of 1942, the National Housing Agency allocated $153 million for the housing of displaced defense workers. There was a production target of 42,000 houses, and in September of 1942, the General Panel Corporation was set up to begin the manufacture of the “Packaged House”. The test house that Wachsmann and Gropius showed in Somerville, Massachusetts, followed the guidelines of the TU1 house.

The house system is quite simple, and architecturally modest. In general it is conceived as a single-story, with a rectangular plan, with a shallow pitched roof and inset porch. What is interesting about the house is that the entire house is not conceived as a single repetitive unit, but that using the modular bay of 3’-4”, infinite configurations could be made of the system, adapting to various climatic and site conditions, and to the taste of the architect and the owner. An impressive aspect of the project lies in the “abstract” qualities of the house, in its uniformity and precision. Great lengths were taken to make the system known to the public. A publicity campaign was undertaken in both the professional and lay press.

THE PACKAGED HOUSE AS SYSTEM

Gilbert Herbert discusses how the concept of “system” was beginning to enter into the “architect’s thinking at the time, although the term itself was not then in common usage.”7 He attributes its emergence to the intellectual climate of the 1920s and 1930s Figure 2. “The GENERAL PANEL system locks together like a Chinese and the work of Alfred North Whitehead and his “analogous theory puzzle.” From (Architectural Forum, February, 1947): 116. of organic mechanism,” von Bertalanffy’s foundation of a general systems theory, Arthur Tansley’s concept of an ecosystem and also to The” Packaged House,” while closed in the finite elements (in design and coordination, but not in number), is actually an open Gropius’s Idea and Organization, his philosophy of total architecture, which Herbert believes is in essence “a comprehensive systems system in that its goal, is not determined in advance, but only in theory of architecture.” the hands of each designer, and a particular time and place. And

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in this sense, it is an organic model, one that exhibits properties as constrained to the use of the component parts, it is simultaneously Bertalanffy had outlined. The “Packaged House” system serves as also exemplary as an open system. To follow Wiener’s notion of a a perfect case study with which to discuss the role of prefabricated closed system, one would have to have the end-goal in sight. That building during World War II and to enunciate the extension of is, as a physical model of a system, the goal would be determined systems theories into construction. by the performance of the system. The missile would make its mark; the house would be determined at the outset by the system of parts. The “Packaged House” system is a perfectly coordinated set of parts that can be brought together in myriad ways. The JOINTING This is not the case. The system of parts exhibits pure potentiality: SYSTEM was based on 2, 3, and 4 way connections between they do not predict a fixed outcome of the “organism” that is panels. All of the building surfaces were to be created from the the building. Rather, the goal, or the teleological drive is in fact same panels: exterior walls, interior partitions, floors, ceilings introduced case by case, with each architect who designed with the and the roof. Using the modular bay of 3’-4”, seemingly infinite modular component parts that would be manufactured offsite. It configurations could be made of the system. An impressive aspect could be argued that the goal of the system is to create enclosure, of the project lies in the “abstract” qualities of the house, in its and that is certainly present. But unlike other prefabricated uniformity and precision. The “Packaged House” provided a new building systems of the time in which the unit was conceived at level of three-dimensional sophistication. the room-scale, the room as cell, the “Packaged House” provides an almost unlimited variety of ways to enclose space, without the This is where a systems reading of Wachsmann and Gropius’s preconceived design of the room. In addition, the system, with “Packaged House” can be particularly revealing. While one its panels and edging pieces could enclose or make punctuated could say that it is in fact a closed system and one that is utterly elements like columns.

The lesson to be taken from systems theory and cybernetics can be used to test the physical component systems of the “Packaged House.” The panels are prefabricated, and are thus already complete entities, and are brought together to make the body of the structure through the locking together of the joints on the lateral edges of the panels. This is very different than a space frame in which linear elements are brought together at the extreme ends of the steel tubes at a joint. The space frame structure must then be clad with other kinds of covering whether metal panels, glass, or other kind of materials. While the space frame does provide a new level of three-dimensional sophistication, the “Packaged House” does this in a different and more compelling manner.

THE UNFULFILLED DREAM

The title of the 1984 book by Gilbert Herbert, The Dream of the Factory-Made House, is telling in that the “Packaged House” remained a dream in that it never did in fact go into production to satisfy the housing need. But by May 1945 with the end of WWII, the house was still not in production, despite enthusiasm for the project. But the house could have a second chance, in the enormous postwar demand for returning GI’s and their families.

The General Panel Corporation raised funds to be able to take over the former Lockheed Factory in Burbank, California, which had been built to fabricate wartime aircraft for government contracts. Factories that made armaments were retooled to make houses, and there were incentives of Federal grants made available. Wachsmann took the leading role and set out to design the factory production line, which was ready by mid-1947, but the project erred in its timing again. By that time the Veterans Emergency Housing Figure 3. “Adaptability of General Panel’s system to a wide range of plan problems is demonstrated by design of well-known architects.” From program was cancelled, and the Government withdrew its support.­ (Architectural Forum, February, 1947): 120.

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Colin Davies, in his recent book The Prefabricated House points Even after I had left General Panel, I was sent to the Atomic out that in the same period in which Wachsmann and Gropius were Energy Commission site in Los Alamos. They needed 3000 houses immediately. They could only issue a letter of intent if the company developing the “Packaged House,” more than seventy companies was able to produce a bank credit. But the bank in turn said that produced over 200,000 prefabricated houses. Davies places the since this was a very unorthodox case, they wanted a letter of intent blame on Wachsmann (and on architects in general) in that he first. It was a vicious circle which never could be resolved. And thus was more concerned (bordering on a disciplinary obsession) with the 3000 houses were never produced. an abstract geometrical system that tended towards mathematical I had started the basic design for this housing system under obscure perfection. He was obsessed with the system and never stopped conditions in Europe but also as a result of my experiences at trying to improve it. For example, as soon as his ingenious 4-way Christoph and Unmäck, always being convinced that this approach connector was ready to go into production, Wachsmann retracted represented the only possible way to deal with modern housing I the design, slowing down the process. When they finally were able had come to the United States and re-designed the whole system in Lincoln with Walter Gropius. We had built several test houses and to go into production, it became clear that the product was too finally a gigantic factory. I had learned enough to understand that the expensive, so the panels were simplified by replacing the “universal principle in itself was wrong. And when I wanted to create the real panels” with standard joist and framing. product, it was too late.

In 1949 I left General Panel Corporation without regret. I felt my life had been enriched by a formidable experience.”8

The title of the 1984 book by Gilbert Herbert, The Dream of the Factory-Made House: Konrad Wachsmann and Walter Gropius, is telling in that the “Packaged House” remained a dream in that it never did in fact go into production. It is perhaps at this point, when the system that Wachsmann had designed was so open, that it was destined to fall apart.

ENDNOTES

1. Bertalanffy, General System Theory, (New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1968), 33-44. 2. Catanese, Anthony J. and Alan W. Steiss, “Systematic Planning – The Challenge of the New Generation of Planners,” Ekistics: Reviews on the Problems and Science of Human Settlements, Volume 26, number 153, (August 1968): 179. 3. Paul E. Edwards, The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996), 45. 4. Bertalanffy, General System Theory, 45. 5. Konrad Wachsmann: An Autobiography “TIMEBRIDGE” 1901 TIMEBRIDGE 2001, 1981 Graham Foundation. Introduction by John Entenza. Unpublished manuscript consulted in the Getty Research Institute Library, 107. 6. “TIMEBRIDGE,” 119. 7. Gilbert Herbert, The Dream of the factory-made house: Walter Gropius and Konrad Wachsmann. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1984), 7-8. Herbert cites his own work, Holism, the Ecosystem and Architecture: Towards a Philosophy of Architectural Design of 1975 as a summary of the emergence of the idea of systems. I have not been able to identify a location to consult this work. Herbert’s book is the most comprehensive study of the Packaged House, but other references are Konrad Wachsmann The Turning Point in Architecture, 1959-1961 English translation; Michael Tower’s reprints and description of the original drawings in Perspecta Vol. 34 (2003); Peter Cook’s Experimental Architecture; and various publications from the time such as L’Architecture Figure 4. The General Panel Factory in Burbank, California, 1947. From d’Aujourd hui, Architectural Review and New Pencil Points. It is Herbert Gilbert The Dream of the Factory-Made House (Cambridge, Mass.: also discussed from a point of view which examines and emphasizes MIT Press, 1984), 291. Walter Gropius’s role in the project in doctoral dissertation by Dora Epstein Jones in the chapter “Case Study 2: “A Fusion of Art, Science and Business” Walter Gropius and the Packaged House This was too much for Wachsmann, because it completely System, 1942-46. Architecture on the Move: Modernism and undermined the UNIVERSALITY of the SYSTEM, which was of Mobility in the Postwar (U.C. Los Angeles, 2004). utmost concern for him. 8. “TIMEBRIDGE,” 119.

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